I honour the mem­ory of Bram Fis­cher, Ruth First, Steve Bantu Biko, Robert Sobukwe, A.B . X uma, Ant on Lem­bede, Samora Machel, Oliver Regi­nal Tambo, Chris Hani and Joe Slovo, and the pan­theon of revolutionary vi­sion­ar­ies who gifted the coun­try with their re­spec­tive philoso­phies and I have the spear of Africa’s des­tiny firmly in m y hands.

I am in­spir ed b y the li ving le gends such as Al­bie Sachs, whose pen­man­ship charts the way like a star flick­er­ing in this all­con­sum­ing dark­ness that South Africa finds it­self in and which re­minds me of the dis tance we have yet to tra­verse be­fore we reach the pr omised land.

I am an African as was Yusuf Dadoo, who fore­sook a God he per ceived was im­per­vi­ous to the b anal­ity of the e vil that was apartheid.

I am in­dig enous to this c oun­try, al­though, like the In­dian My­nah, my an­ces­tors were fraud­u­lently in­tro­duced to the c on­ti­nent that shelt ered, nur­tured and em­pow­ered me and im­por­tantly be­came the only home I know and am com­fort­able to live in.

I can go on ad in­fini­tum but for now I am an African and none can dis­put e that.